Our sick society but no medicine

Societies are like a human bodies made up of different parts. The parts work in equilibrium the body can function smoothly, otherwise, it may cause dysfunction. Contextually, the parts of our society are not working properly, and resultantly the whole social system is completely dysfunctional or in other words society is in the state of sickness. The parts or organs are disintegrated with one another. In this context, we are socially, culturally, rationally, religiously, emotionally and behaviorally at the lowest level. Intolerance in each sphere of life is the prominent hallmark of our society. Hostile attitudes are observed very common. Malice, jealousy, hatred and conflicts are escalating frequently. These ill-practices consequently embodying social system with anxiety and frustration, which nevertheless leads society towards aggression. As frustration-aggression theory in the domain of social psychology argues that frustration in the human minds do not stay for long, and ultimately leads to aggression. The theory contends that if such frustration is not reasonably pacified or handled, the aggressive attitude diffused to harm other people rather than the responsible ones. That’s why we always witness violent and rude behaviors in our surroundings.

The humiliating and intolerant attitudes are rampant, however, no serious work is being done to refine attitudes of the people unfortunately. The children are not being nurtured that how to behave and what to share in certain situations. The families are very less to focus socialization of their members ironically. The educational institutions though considered usually the prominent settings to train the children, but in reality there is no any single discipline from nursery to graduation to work on the attitudes and behavior of children. No any class or tutor is there to re-socialize the de-socialized children. Sometime literally I wonder that why people taunt educated ones to be civilized and well-mannered. As he has not been taught a single subject throughout his educational career regarding character building.

Our students are no doubt too good at mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, computer, geography and etc. but due to unavailability of ethical contents and practices in their schools the children often found unethical and unsocial. Our children would be well-educated but not well-civilized. Even most of the time the people have been found criticizing harshly high-rank officers for showing very rude and unethical behaviors in the official settings. In short we cannot expect many times the educated people to show a decent manner. It is indeed a big failure of our system. The dishonest and deceptive youth are proving defamatory for the country across the globe when they migrate to other countries, as the reports reveal. However, on the other side the advance counties from the very beginner classes work on the behavior and conduct of the children more than their academic faculty. Psychologists persists that the initial years of a child have the most prominent impacts on the children’s personality throughout his life. Regrettably the same situation prevails in all other formal and informal institutions. We cannot make responsible only educational institutions for not properly socialization but rather all other institutions have not played their due role to train their members in a better way.

Nevertheless, the peoples have become more materialistic than the need. They have lost their decent historical sociocultural norms and values. The ill manners and practices rule all around, which have created mental health issues. One can find the most crowd on a psychiatrist or neurologist in the hospitals upon a surprise and random visit. A prominent sociologist Emile Durkheim concludes that these are the social forces which carry someone to mental health issues, and moreover these forces in many cases carry people to the ultimate end as the suicide. While looking into the situation it is easily derived that if there was no socio-religious stigma the suicide rate would have been double in our country than Japan and other European countries. The misconduct and unhealthy behaviors of the people have troubled the whole social life. These practices are observed in each sphere of life. Like in offices, markets, business centers, in schools, hospitals, in the playgrounds, in traffic in terms of risky and wrong driving crosses, and in the localities etc. Regrettably these unethical and unsocial manners have not sabotaged the social life only but also kept the stability of families at stake. The parent-child conflicts, the intergenerational embroilments within families are witnessed most often. The two generational cohorts have always been found complainant from each other. But unfortunately no significant work has been done on this aspect of life even though no one has thought critically to reform society in this regard.

While noting the above mentioned notions it is mandatory to focus the issue and think critically about the behavior and conduct of our society’s members. Families, schools and madrassa are all equally to work on the behavioral aspect of their students. Moreover, it is obligatory to redesign the course contents and subjects on the state level; include all those subjects which could provide useful insights to the children, critically concentrate the behavior and conduct, mold them in positive way. Visit the international schooling systems and their courses. Work pragmatically though arranging seminars, workshops, and public awareness sessions. Establish punishment and reward system. Furthermore, mobilize masjids and religious scholars as they can play significant role in molding behavior and attitudes of the masses in a constructive way. Islam was not revealed to offer prayers or fasting merely but to work on the conduct and social life of the people. The life of the Holy Prophet (PBUH) was the symbol of sublime morality and good manner. He used to influence the people through his sublime ethicalmanners and distinctive character. Contextually, we need good manners, positive attitudes, soft behaviors, brotherhood and fraternity to avoid frustration and intolerance.

Muhammad Rahim Nasar
Muhammad Rahim Nasar
Muhammad Rahim Nasar, Lecturer in the Department of Sociology University of Balochistan, Quetta. Email. [email protected]

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